‘Feisty’ is one. ‘Bossy’ gets a lot of press. And don’t get me started on ‘working mother’. How many men have you heard described as ‘working fathers’, let alone ‘dadpreneurs’? Subtly sexist words about women and girls. Not the obvious, awful insulting words (which are depressingly many and varied), but the ones that fly […]
Last month, the newly elected Parliament of Myanmar chose Htin Kyaw as the country’s first non-military President since 1962. It was another step towards democracy, and a happy one, but Myanmar’s path to recovery is likely to be long and windy. The military still controls much of the government and has veto power over constitutional changes. They could […]
Kia ora koutou! Welcome to the Down Under Feminists’ Carnival, chock-full of blog posts and great writing from around Australia, Aotearoa and the Pacific. I’m Thalia, a New Zealand lawyer-turned-minister-turned-mother-turned-writer-turned-development-worker. You are very welcome at my place. This is my first time hosting, and heck, it has been a lot of fun. Of the nerdy, […]
Well, I love a good book list challenge. Danyl from Dimpost has written a list of 50-odd must-read novels to recommend to people. The difference with his list is that he omits anything too long or ‘hard’ that might turn out to put people off: A few weeks ago I was arguing about lists of […]
Michaela Cisney is executive director and founder of Priyam Global, a US-based international health organisation that works in India to tackle root issues of poverty for children affected by disability and their families. She also works as a freelance communications consultant for a large humanitarian agency. Michaela lives and works between Indiana, USA and Chennai, […]
A little visitor came to our house for the first time recently. This was the conversation between the visitor and my four-year-old son, SBJ: Visitor: Whose bike is that? SBJ: Mine! V: It can’t be yours. It’s pink. Pink is a girl colour. SBJ: No, colours are for everyone. Pink is one of my favourite colours. […]
A friend got in touch this morning about this article, gone viral, about a little boy standing up for a woman being verbally abused by a man in a street. I think this little guy is awesome, but I don’t find it a wholly positive story. See what you think: That was my trigger point. The B […]
In the middle of the (Thai) night, slightly out of kilter after all the flying, and up with jet-lagged (or rather, jet-fuelled) children, I got the very good news by email that the Advertising Standards Authority had upheld a swathe of complaints against this billboard: The advertisement, like several others for the services of this […]
[Update: we won! But there’s good news and bad news. My take on the decision is here.] I got my rant on yesterday and today I got my complain on. This is the text of my formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority. They’ve already refused to consider two complaints against this ad, so I […]
Sigh. I went to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority (yes, again) about a billboard where a naked woman’s body is used to sell… scaffolding. And cranes. And stuff like that. It came up in the feminist mothers’ Facebook group I’m part of. Lots of people were appalled at the billboard and had been complaining […]